agTravelList

travel preparations with checklists


When should I give this program a try?
What are the main steps to plan my first trip?
How do I benefit from earlier trips?
How do I keep my checklists up to date?
How do I organize my equipment?
What about checklists for several people?

When should I give this program a try?

This software should be very helpful if you

In addition you are encouraged to "misuse" agTravelList by creating lists for shopping, sports, school, ...

agTravelList features

Top

What are the main steps to plan my first trip?

There are four steps to plan your first trip with agTravelList:

  1. Set up a stock consisting of all things for your trip.
  2. Compile a checklist out of that stock.
  3. Print out the checklist.
  4. Collect all items and make checkmarks on the printed checklist.

    Actually there is a fifth step, after the return from your journey:

  5. If you learned that your checklist has room for improvement, improve it! That way you avoid making mistakes twice and the list will be a better basis for your next trips.

Top

How do I benefit from earlier trips?

The main advantage is: You don't have to set up every checklist from scratch again. The better your lists are the more you will benefit later from former experiences.

If you can revert to approved checklists, this is how you might proceed:

  1. Look at the list of trips in agTravelList and pick out the one which is most similar to your new trip.
  2. Make a copy of this trip
  3. Modify the copy according to your new demands, e.g. change the number of a specific item or pick new items out of the stock.

Top

How do I keep my checklists up to date?

Because of the separation in stock and checklists you don't have to bother with keeping your lists up to date. Every change you make on an item will automatically apply to all checklists which refer to that particular item.

Imagine you acquire new walking shoes. Now you can either add them to the stock, or, if you got rid off the old ones, change name, comment and the weight accordingly. In the latter case all affected checklists will show the new shoes, the overall weight of the baggage will automatically be updated.

Top

How do I organize my equipment?

There are two aproaches one can think of. Take a toothbrush for example.

Normally you will find a toothbrush in the bathroom, maybe in the bathroom cabinet. So it is suggesting to create a category "Bathroom Cabinet" and put the toothbrush in it. The advantage is, when collecting your stuff according to the checklist, you'll have no trouble finding the toothbrush quickly, just in the bathroom cabinet.

We prefer the other way round. On a trip we will certainly take no bathroom cabinet with as, rather a washbag. So we create a category "Washbag" for our toothbrush. Maybe the search of this particular item will take a little bit longer*), but on the other hand we have organized our baggage in advance.

*) No, our bathroom isn't that untidy ;-)

Top

What about checklists for several people?

Shure, that's no problem. The question is, do the participating people fall back on the same stock? agTravelList stores stock and the appropriate checklists in one file (<filename>.atl). If all folks use items from the same stock, each traveller can set up his own checklist, stored in the same file, for example:

If on the other hand these people prefer to use own stocks, we have three files and don't need to distinguish the trips:

Top